Ellen Gray

Television Critic

Ellen Gray is the television critic for the Daily News and the Inquirer, and has written about TV since 1994. Her mind will go blank if you ask her to name her favorite show, because she has so many, but she would love to hear about yours.

I'm pretty sure White House gate-crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi didn't make it to Chelsea Clinton's wedding Saturday -- if only because the pair were holding court Friday night in Beverly Hills at an NBC Universal party during the Television Critics summer meetings to which they'd undeniably been invited.

I'll be telling you more later this week about my time with the pair -- easily the most notorious cast members of Bravo's "The Real Housewives of D.C.," which doesn't even premiere till Thursday -- but in the meantime must note their zeal to keep "reality" real, even when the cameras aren't rolling.

Because it was not long after the NBC party at the Beverly Hilton that the couple, along with some of Michaele's fellow "Housewives," took themselves off to Trader Vic's, the hotel's poolside bar, where things apparently got a little heated and Tareq Salahi was spotted throwing a glass of wine at a fellow cast member, later identified by several online sites as Lynda Erkiletia.

How good is my source on this? Hey, I got it directly from one of the reporters at a nearby table, who said he was hit by the spray. So you can take that to the bank. Or maybe the dry cleaners.

Update: "I may have been exaggerating," says my friend this morning. Seems that while the wine was red, the spray mostly hit the table at which he was seated.

Given that Bravo's cameras don't appear to have been rolling, this is either Method acting of the highest order or evidence that the unpleasantness that's a staple of the "Housewives" franchise doesn't actually require staging.

Or, of course, it could totally be a publicity stunt by the not exactly shy and retiring Tareq.

Who otherwise would have to be declared at least as stupid as former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, the onetime presidential candidate who chose the Beverly Hilton, on another night when the hotel was packed with reporters, to conduct his infamous meeting with his mistress and child.

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